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ILLIIsTOIS 



AND THE 



^THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT ^ 



TO THE 



Constitution of the United States. 




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A Paper 
Read before the Chicago Historical Society. 

Tuesday Evening, January 15, 1884, 



V 



William Bross, A.M., 



Lieutenant Governor of Illinois , /SOj-bg. 






CHICAGO: 

JANSEN, MeCLURG & CO. 

1884. 








Class F 5 4 (o 

Book ,TU7 



iLLinsrois 



AND THE 



THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 



TO THE 



Constitution of the United States. 



A Paper 

Read before the Chicago Historical Society, 

Tuesday Evening, January 15, 1884, 



William Bross, A.M., 

M 

Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, 1805-09 



I -, 




APR 9 1884 

CHICAGO: 

JANSEN, MeCLURG & CO. 

1884. 



Chicago Historical Society, 

140 and 142 dearborn avenue, 

Chicago, January 17th, 1884. 
Hon. Wm. Bross. 

Dear Sir : / have the honor to inform you that 
at a meeting of the Chicago Historical Society, held on the 
15th inst., on motion of Gen. A. L. Chetlain, the thanks of the 
Society ivere unanimously tendered to you, for your valuable 
historical paper, entitled, u The Thirteenth Constitutional 
Amendment in the Illinois Legislature in 1865," and the re- 
quest ivas made that you furnish the Society a copy of the 
same for publication. 

Very Respectfully, 

Albert D. Hager, 

Secretary. 






THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT. 



" SEC. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except 

AS A PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME WHEREOF THE PARTY SHALL HAVE BEEN 
DULY CONVICTED, SHALL EXIST WITHIN THE UNITED STATES, OR ANY 
PLACE SUBJECT TO THEIR JURISDICTION. 

" SEC. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article 

BY APPKOPRIATE LEGISLATION." 



At the meeting of the Chicago Historical Society, 
Tuesday evening, Jan. 15, 1884, Ex. -Lieut. Governor 
William Bross read the following paper : 

History records eras of marked and commanding interest in 
the progress of mankind. From them nations take their de- 
parture to a more free and vigorous life. Various are the causes 
which produce them, and they are often many years, it may be 
ages, in working out the grand results which, culminating in a 
single day, make it ever after one of the most noteworthy in the 
annals of the race. Such was the 15th of June in the year of 
grace 1215, when the clergy, the barons, and the freemen of 
England, extorted from King John that great charter of human 
rights whose principles live to-day in the Constitution of the 
United States and in that of every State in this Union. They 
are the vital elements of our free institutions, giving to every 
man the right of appeal to the laws of the land, and only for 
crime, and in the judicial execution of those laws, can he be 
deprived of his property, his liberty, or his life. Such, too, was 



4 THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT. 

the Fourth of July, 1776, and such a marked event also was the 
19th of July, 1787, when the ordinance was passed prohibiting 
slavery in all the Northwestern Territories. That remarkable 
enactment was passed unanimously by the representatives of the 
old thirteen States, in five of which slavery then existed. To that 
the great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, owe 
their freedom from " the sum of all villainies, 1 ' and virtually also 
the States west of the Mississippi and north of Missouri. The 
territory of which they are composed then belonged to Spain. 

And, again, to that charter of freedom granted at Runny- 
mede by King John in 1215 can be traced directly the submission 
of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution by Congress to 
the several States, abolishing slavery in all the States and 
Territories of the Union on the 1st day of February, 1865. It was 
passed the day before, but it was not enrolled and formally sub- 
mitted to the States till Wednesday, February 1. The morn- 
ing of that day, it having passed the evening before, the Re- 
publican papers all through the nation had the most enthusiastic 
editorials, marking the day as one of the most glorious in the 
history of the Republic. 

THAT THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT, 

when adopted by the States, as it surely would be, " proclaimed 
liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof. 11 Be- 
tween the passage of the grand old ordinance of 1787, for which 
the five slave States voted unanimously, and the adoption of the 
Constitution in 1789, the leaders of the slave power had shown 
fears for the safety of the accursed institution, and they demand- 
ed and obtained a recognition of it and a tacit consent not only 
to its continuance, but that their Representatives in Congress 
should be increased by three-fifths of the slaves themselves. 
Had the Northern States demanded an equal representation for 
their cattle, the claim would have been equally absurd. But at 
the time the framers of the Constitution believed this compro- 
mise the best that could be made, vainly hoping that slavery 
would die out amid the blaze of Christian light and knowledge 
— in fact, that it would miserably perish by its own intrinsic 
rottenness. Vain, delusive hope. By its arrogance and fiendish 
energy for three score and ten years it had seduced a large party 



THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT. 5 

in the free States to support whatever iniquity it dared to com- 
mit ; it had virtually stamped out the right of petition ; it had 
passed laws by which every man in the free States was made a 
sleuth-hound to hunt down the poor slave when fleeing for 
refuge under the British flag ; it had struck down with 
brutal bludgeon in the very halls of Congress, one of the ablest 
and noblest Senators of the Republic — till at last it had thrust a 
skeleton into almost every house in the land during four years 
of wicked, causeless rebellion. The bloody and then nearly suc- 
cessful and righteous war to put it down, their National Con- 
vention — for it was virtually theirs — in this very city of Chicago, 
with an effrontery and fiendish malignity scarcely equaled in all 
history, declared in 1864 to be a failure; andwhenon the first day 
of February, 1865, Congress submitted to the States the amend- 
ment of freedom, can it be a wonder that the whole nation, from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes down the Father 
of Waters to the Gulf, rang with thankful shouts of victory and 
freedom? That morning 

THE CHICAGO TKIBUNE, 

always in sharp contrast with the venomous treason of its Cop- 
perhead neighbor, said : 

"The last shackle is gone from the limbs of Freedom. There is henceforth 
no shelter for the oppressor in all the land. The man-seller and the 
woman-whipper, the negro-driver and the man-hunter, may read then- 
doom gone forth in the record of yesterday, which will shine on the 
page of all time with the greatest events that have blessed our race. In 
the halls where pro-slavery, rancor, and hate through long years held 
Liberty bound and gagged to be buffeted by her enemies, Freedom has 
been decreed, and a glad nation comes rejoicing to its remotest bounds. 
Liberty is the law of the land. No barbarism out of the past will threat- 
en a nation whose law-givers have dared to hold fast to the primal law of 
human progress — human rights. 

" This gigantic stride in our progress towards national purity, uni- 
versal liberty and righteous peace will be hailed with deep exultation 
and religious gratitude by our liberty loving American people. We 
congratulate the friends of Freedom in the present Congress that they 
have redeemed the fame of that body. They have removed, so far as 
they had the power, the last moral stain from our National escutcheon— 
the only disgrace from our flag." 

The little corner that still held out in what Brownlow called 

" Jeff Davis 1 ungodly dominions " heard in that shout the knell 

of doom. Only a few weeks more, and Sherman's brave boys 

crushed out the last vestige of the rebellion. 



6 THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT. 

It is to the part taken by Illinois in confirming this glorious 
amendment to the Constitution of the United States that I wish 
specially to call your attention. The news of its passage was 
received in Springfield on the morning of the first of February 
with an all-absorbing sense of its vast importance and the 
solemn duties it imposed upon the State. This feeling was in- 
tensified when a message was received from Gov. Oglesby, whose 
stalwart system will carry a rebel bullet to his dying day, 
officially informing the legislature of the passage of the amend- 
ment of freedom, and asking its immediate adoption. 

In his message the Governor, among other things, said : 

" Let Illinois be the first State in the Union to ratify by the act of her 
Legislature this proposed amendment to the Constitution of the Uuited 
States. It is just, it is humane, it is constitutional, it is right to do so." 

In another paragraph he says in regard to its ratification : 
" Let us do so, and do so now." 

Mr. McConnell moved that the communication be referred to 
the Committee on Federal Relations. 

On motion of Mr. Mack the rules were suspended and he pre- 
sented the following joint resolution : 

" Whereas, The Congress of the United States has proposed to the 
several States the following amendment to the Federal Constitution, viz, : 

"'Sec. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a pun- 
ishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall 
exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

" 'Sec 2. Congi'ess shall have power to enforce this article by appro- 
priate legislation.' 

' ' Therefore, be it 

''Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives concurring 
herein, that the State of Illinois, by its Legislature, ratifies and assents 
to said amendment." 

On motion of Mr. Mack, the rules were suspended, the reso- 
lution read, and referred to the Committee on Federal Relations. 

On motion of Mr. Peters, the Senate adjourned till 2 o'clock. 

After some unimportant business in the afternoon, the Com- 
mittee reported, and Mr. Mack called up the joint resolution 
above given. 

Here speeches were made against the measure, by Judge Green, 
of Alexander, Mr. Cohrs, and some other Democrats, merely, as 
they said, to put themselves on the record, and, as all understood 
them, to maintain their consistency. But all were in a very kindly 
spirit, and made no factious opposition to the passage of the 



THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT. 7 

amendment. The Republicans, with a solemn sense of the re- 
sponsibility they were assuming, remained satisfied to record 
their votes for it, while Senator McConnell, the Nestor of the 
Senate, and for a third of a century a leading member of the 
Democratic party, made an able, eloquent, and intensely patri- 
otic speech in its favor. 

Mr. Van Deveer moved that it lie on the table, and be made 
the special order for to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock. This 
was decided in the negative — yeas, 11; nays, 12. 

Mr. Mack then moved the previous question. The yeas and 
nays being demanded, it was decided in the affirmative — yeas, 
15; na} r s, 9. 

The question then being, u Will the Senate adopt the resolu- 
tion ?" the yeas and nays were as follows: In the affirmative — 
Adams, Allen, Bushnell, Eastman, Green of Marion, Lansing, 
Lindsay, Mack, Mason, McConnell, Metcalf, Peters, Richards, 
Scofield, Strain, Ward, Webster, Worcester — yeas, 18. 

Those voting in the negative were Cohrs, Green of Alexan- 
der, Hunter, Riley, Van Deveer, Wescott, — 6. 

Eighteen to six is surely a very handsome majority. 

The House had also before them the message of Gov. Oglesby, 
but on receiving the joint resolution from the Senate it Avas 
taken up. Mr. McCoy moved the previous question, and it was 
decided in the affirmative — yeas, 55; nays, 20. 

So the main question was ordered, and the joint resolution 
was adopted — yeas, 48; nays, 28. 

Thus, so far as Illinois is concerned, 

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 

became an integral part of the Constitution of the United 
States. The dry details of the official record copied above give 
no sign of the deep solemnity which accompanied the passage 
of the resolution. The whole history of the struggles of man- 
kind for freedom through all the ages seemed pictured on the 
minds of the members. Especially did visions of the dear ones 
sleeping their last sleep that the Union might live, that by this 
sublime act this dark, foul blot might be wiped from her 



8 THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT. 

proud escutcheon, appear to drive out every other thought. 
Men spoke in whispers, as if standing among the tombs of the 
past, and before them was the angel of light and liberty point- 
ing to the glorious future of the Republic. The few who opposed 
were merely maintaining their consistency, and in their inmost 
souls were glad that this day would mark another forward and 
substantial movement in the progress of the race. At the distance 
of nearly nineteen years, some — doubtless all — of the men who 
voted for this great measure of freedom regard it as the most 
important act of their lives. I certainly do — signing it for the 
people of Illinois as presiding officer of the Senate. That in 
all the future it will stand out as a marked event in human 
progress there cannot be a particle of doubt. 

A resolution adopting the amendment was passed by the other 
States in the following order : Rhode Island, Michigan, Mary- 
land, New York, West Virginia, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Louis- 
iana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas, 
Connecticut, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alabama, North 
Carolina, and Georgia. 

The 18th of December, 1865, the Secretary of State issued a 
proclamation, stating that twenty-seven of the thirty-six States, 
a constitutional majority of three-fourths, having assented to 
and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, it was thereafter to be 
a binding provision in the Constitution of the United States. 
The foot of the slave can therefore nevermore pollute the soil 
of America. And let it go down for all future time in the his- 
tory of the Republic, that in this glorious achievement, the 
grand result of four years of bloody, fratricidal war, made by 
the slaveholders themselves, Illinois stands first among all her 
sister States. Our children in all the distant future may well 
point to it with honest, patriotic pride. With unwavering 
trust in the guidance and the protection of Israel's God, let 
them — let all Americans — ever cherish the sublime aspiration 
of Webster, " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and in- 
separable. 1 ' 

NOTE.— The Historical Society will send this paper to their correspondents 
Those of my personal friends who receive it, will please accept it with my compli- 
ments. W. B. 



